An European project for secondary raw materials from construction and demolition waste.

Vicat, partner of SeRaMCo (Secondary Raw Materials for Concrete Precast Products) European project. This 31/2 year (avril 17- sept 20) INTERREG project is about recycling concrete and other demolition waste materials into pre-made concrete products as well as cement.

The construction sector in EU uses around 50% of the primary raw materials and is responsible for 1/3 of the overall European waste.

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) are made of concrete, bricks, tiles, ceramics potentially recyclable into aggregates with appropriate process. For the time being, 70% of this CDW is reused in roads bottom layers.

SeRaMCo project aims at increasing the use of secondary good quality raw materials to manufacture pre-made concrete products and also at recycling lesser quality fine particles (<2mm) into cement.

The project will enable innovative treatment methods, industrial cement production with various sand qualities and industrial production of pre-made concrete from recycled aggregates. These products will be tested in 3 pilots areas, namely, City of Seraing (Belgium), City of Saarlouis (Germany) and Region of Moselle (France).

Under this frame, Vicat collaborates with Lorraine University (Materials for civil engineering of Jean Lamour Institute) on incorporating recycled aggregates into raw materials used for cement making. Blending conditions (incorporation rate, temperature) and produced cement properties (mineralogy, reactivity, sustainability) will be studied in our lab.

This is part of Vicat’s commitment to natural resources preservation and reduction of non-recyclable CDW.